If You Stay
by Fear the Pretty People
Summary: Light has been changed from human to beast and it's his own fault. Can the mysterious L help him find his way back to humanity? Pairing: L/Light Remake of Beauty and the Beast. No Death Note but a lot of the characters will show up.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or the tale of Beauty and the Beast. Only meant to be a fun take on my favorite fairytale and my favorite anime. :) This disclaimer is for all following chapters also.

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_A heart of Winter won't last long,_

_And love's Summer soon will fade._

_Spring can end in broken hearts,_

_But Autumn's beauty always finds a way._

She was looking up at me in an expectant manner. I hoped she didn't think there was going to be another date. She's not even that pretty. All I wanted was to get home and relax. The entire time we had been out, it felt like someone was watching me and it was really starting to annoy.

"So Light," she fidgeted. "I had a good time."

"Right," I stated in the most final way I could. "Good-bye." Turning on my heel, I left her at her gate. Honestly, some people couldn't take a hint.

I had walked down a couple of blocks and turned onto my road when I saw someone standing on the sidewalk. As I got closer, I could see that it was a girl. Pale skin, blonde hair and dressed mostly in black, she stood very still and stared at me. When I was a few feet away I stopped. This girl had to be an idiot. She was standing alone in the middle of the night on a nearly deserted street beside a row of rose bushes. She wore less than I originally thought and being dressed in skimpy black clothing was, possibly, the easiest way to attract unwanted attention. I inwardly rolled my eyes and started to walk around her. If she wanted to get raped or killed, it was no business of mine.

"Hello, Light!"

I stopped again when I heard her voice. It was… very, very cheery.

And loud.

She was smiling at me like we were friends and holding her purse in front of her with both hands. I didn't even care how she knew my name. It wasn't like she could hurt me. I stared back at her for a moment before walking around her and continuing on my way.

"I said 'hello', Light Yagami."

I turned and glared at her still smiling face. "And I ignored you."

The smiled dropped from her face. "That's not nice, Light, and right now you could do with showing a little kindness."

"Who are you? How do you know my name and what the hell is that supposed to mean?" I questioned, narrowing my eyes.

"My name is Misa Amane!" she replied, smiling again and bowing. "It's not any real wonder that I know the name of the adored Light Yagami and you will soon find out what I mean."

"Right, whatever." I turned to walk away again.

"You weren't very nice to Yuri, either."

"You're the one who was watching me?" I spun around at her, truly angry this time. I could feel my hands balling into fists at my side.

"Of course I was watching you, silly! You're not very nice to anyone, really. Like poor Matsuda." She pranced a bit closer and leaned over to smell a rose. Picking it, she held it out to me. "What do you think of it?"

This was completely absurd. "Who are you?" I demanded again.

"I told you, I'm Misa. What do you think of the rose, Light?"

I was starting to think she was actually crazy. "How do you know Matsuda? Did he ask you to follow me?"

"He didn't ask me to do anything. I've never met him. Of course, I guess that doesn't matter all that much to you since you DO know him and still announced to everyone in the school square that he's gay."

"He IS gay," I explained. I laughed a bit.

"So are you," she countered, staring me straight in the eye.

"So," I shrugged, smirking. "What of it?"

"You are fine with your sexuality, but his secret was not yours to tell. You were never kind to him before that, but somehow he trusted you enough to show you some of the fear he had about telling everyone that he is, in fact, gay. You saw that fear and exploited it." She stepped closer to me. "And you, knowing that you are a gay man, still go on dates with girls who might have feelings for you. You take what you want from them…"  "And what's that?" I bristled.

"Power," she nearly spit back at me, still in her high, not quite lilting voice. "You show everyone that you have power over them. You show them that you believe yourself to be better than them, than everyone else. Occasionally, you do that with men, also. But they're a little harder to fool, aren't they, Light?"

She looked at me with eyes that were almost empty and omniscient at the same time. My body was starting to feel slightly unreal. Not quite tingling but something was there.

"What do you think of the rose?" She asked me again.

"I think it's an ugly, worthless thing that's going to be dead in a matter of hours," I finally answered as cruelly as I could.

"That's sad," she said, and she actually looked it. "This is a very special kind of rose. It only blooms in autumn. When everything starts to change in beautiful colors, its buds burst in blood red."

Right. Perhaps she's a drug addict and a stalker. Then again, almost everyone knows about me, anyway.

"Misa Misa is going to do you a favor Light Yagami," she grinned, holding the rose close to her now and looking pleased with herself. "I believe that you could become a good person." She bowed her head and blew gently onto the rose and the rose started to glisten and glitter. She held the flower out to me, "Take the rose," she ordered and, inexplicably, I did.

"Guard that rose," she told me. "I tell you now that, in two years, that flower will die."

That was when I realized that she was beginning to change. If I hadn't been staring at her for the past five minutes I wouldn't have noticed it. Her ears grew to points and her eyes became more feline and her being became more ethereal.

"What's happening to you?" I asked.

"I'm going to teach you a lesson, Light. You have two years. Two years to fall in love; _true_ love, and see that love returned. Two years until the rose dies. If you succeed in loving and being loved, you will return to your human state."  I quickly tried to back away and found myself unable to. I knew deep down that this was not a game; that she was not human. "What are you going to change me into?" I asked in a shaky voice that I did not recognize as my own.

"I only change you into what you are on the inside," she explained, raising her hand. Sharp words began to echo in my mind, though I didn't see her open her mouth.

_Cruel._

_Hateful._

_Ugly._

_A Beast._

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A/N: Big thanks to my awesome beta Amy!


	2. The Search

Disclaimer: same as Prologue.

A/N: Sorry it took so long to get this up. We had some wind and thunderstorms that ended up knocking our power out for a couple of days and that does not a quickly written chapter make :)  
Thank you to all the lovely people who reviewed! Your words are much appreciated!

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Chapter 1- The Search

_Pounded walls make bloody fists_

_You search through every fissure_

_It's running, ghostlike, out of reach_

_Not for you to discover._

A year later

"Mello, you should pick up the wrappers. Watari will be home at any moment."

The blonde stared up at me, smirking for a moment before rolling his eyes and gathering the empty chocolate bar wrappers. Shuffling into the sitting room, I passed Near. As usual, he was crouched down on the floor in front of one of his puzzles. I hopped into the chair in front of one of the windows and stared at the youngest of our strange household. Once the puzzle, completely black, was finished, he turned it off the board, brushed a hand through the pieces and went to putting it back together again. Sometimes I wished I could get my mind to stop racing long enough to enjoy putting the same blank black puzzle together over and over again.

"L," Mello stated from across the room. I looked up and once again wanted to pull the teen's midriff top down as far as it would go to cover the exposed skin but resisted… somehow.

"Yes?" I asked.

"I'm going out with Matt." That's when I noticed he had his leather jacket in his hand.

"You should really wait until Watari arrives, Mello," Near spoke in his high voice from the floor.

Mello rolled his eyes. "He won't mind not seeing me for a while," he said irritably, shrugging the coat on. "After all, we all know that L is his favorite."

It always aggravated me when Mello used this argument as an excuse to go out and do God-knows-what with his friends. "He'll want to see you, I'm sure," I argued, but Mello already had the door open. I turned to Near**,** who was messing up the pieces to the puzzle again**,** and felt the corner of my lip turn up. "You'd think that he was the youngest of us."

Near froze over the pieces and turned to look up at me. "The only reason you like me better than him is because of his volatile nature. If he was a bit calmer and less inclined to violence, you wouldn't have a thought for me." He went back to his game. "But then again, you wouldn't ever say, one way or the other…"

With that, I knew that Near was through talking to me. I couldn't ignore the fact that Watari did tend to pay a special kind of attention to me, though he never ignored Mello or Near. I certainly did not ask for the extra acknowledgement, either. We shared a love of glass sculpturing and we often spent time admiring the sometimes simple and sometimes intricate beauty in them. Some appeared to be so breakable and some looked like a bomb could not tear them apart.

Once Near had finished the puzzle again he picked up the entire board and disappeared up the stairs, apparently finished with my company.

Laying my hand on the desk, I spun my chair around so I could gaze out over the city to the tree-covered hills in the distance. Those hills were the one thing that could calm me, though most people said that the hills were haunted by a creature. Something had happened there at any rate. A year ago, all of the animals that lived in the trees had vacated. Within a week, you could walk through them and not find a single animal or hear a single noise. All that was left was an overwhelming sense of danger. The elders said that it was the evil waking up after being dormant for so long but I did not believe that. The logical part of my brain would not let me accept it as fact. It was much more likely that the area had been contaminated. This would explain the absence of animals, and if the chemical, or whatever it was, had a smell, it would explain the uneasy feeling.

I, of course, had no way to talk to anyone outside of this apartment about it. Sure, I had no problem going outside**,** but others tended to see me as…different. I always walk with a deep slouch and sit with my knees pulled up to my chest. I suppose I could walk upright but it's a chore to do it for just a few feet. As for the way I sit, it's much easier to think. The way I look doesn't seem to help either. Pale skin and jet black hair that can't be tamed. My unusually wide, gray eyes are always marked by dark circles. I could chose to wear different clothes, I guess but my jeans and white shirt suit me fine and shoes just bug me.

I hopped out of the chair and shuffled into the kitchen. Flipping the dial on the stove, I began to heat the water that was already in the kettle. I walked to the cupboards and pulled out a saucer and cup with just the tips of my fingers, then turned and retrieved from a different cabinet: a container of tea leaves, a box of sugar cubes and a carton of doughnuts. I dumped some of the leaves into the teapot beside the stove in a manner that even I had to describe as 'haphazardly'. While the water heated I reached for two skewers that were sitting beside the sink and began to stab the doughnuts with them, arranging the pastries as I wanted them. As soon as the water was hot, I sloshed enough into the teapot to fill it and quickly wiped the rest up with a towel. I don't think I got it all. Gathering everything onto a serving tray I shuffled back into the sitting room, deposited the tray on the desk and maneuvered back into my chair.

_I bet it is toxic waste,_ I thought as I dispensed the tea into the cup and then methodically placed ten cubes of sugar into the black liquid. I couldn't blame anyone who believed that the forest was haunted though. It certainly would have looked creepy enough. If I thought like a normal person, I would probably be afraid of it, too.

I put my thumb to my lip and as I continued to ponder the mystery of the mountains, the sky darkened and a heavy rain began to beat on the window. Many times I had thought about going into the forest myself and searching through its peculiarities. There did seem to be a strange pull to go there… maybe more like curiosity.

I broke out of my thoughts as I realized that the rain had increased so much that I could no longer see through it. I almost smiled to myself as I hoped that Watari remembered his umbrella. Picking up the skewer, I released the first of the doughnuts and popped it into my mouth.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Chief, I'm sorry, but the woman was a dead end."

Chief Soichiro Yagami of the Japanese Task Force sighed. "Well, it was worth a try. That will be all for today Aizawa."

"Good night, sir." Shuichi Aizawa started to turn. "Not that it's really any of my business, but perhaps you should head home also, Chief. Your wife and daughter still need you."

Chief Yagami made no reply, but continued to stare at the few files on his desk as Aizawa left the room followed by Kanzo Mogi. Chief Yagami had been prevented from carrying out a full scale investigative search for his son after the first few months. He was allowed, however, to use his own time to carry on the hunt. Most of his time was now spent looking through every nook and cranny for any possible sighting. Picking up the file nearest to him, he looked at the face of his son in the picture pinned to the top paper.

The son he had not seen in a year.

When Light had gone missing, Chief Yagami started an immediate search for him. There was no reason for the boy to have run away and certainly they would have gotten a note from him saying that he had.

There was no note.

There was no body.

There was no evidence that his son had not simply vanished off the face of the earth.

There were only numerous statements of where so many people had last seen him. As far as Chief Yagami could tell, the last person to see his son was a young girl named Yuri that he had been on a date with. After dropping her off at her house, he seemed to fall off the face of the planet.

Desperate, Chief Yagami had had his team interview everyone at his son's school and few knew anything about the illusive Light Yagami. One thing that stayed in many peoples stories was a fight. An argument that had taken place in the university courtyard. Nearly half of the school had seen the fight between the two men and were almost too shy to tell the task force what it had been about. They soon found out that one of the men involved had revealed a bit too much about the other man's sexuality. Light had been the one to go too far. Most people they interviewed didn't know who the other man was, just that he had looked furious when he was away from Light. Some said he looked angry enough to have done something about it.

No one was able to name the other man, however. No one, that is, until the fourth member of their team, Touta Matsuda, arrived. After that, the students were able to simply point to who it was.

Chief Yagami let the file fall back onto the desk and exited the room. He walked down the too familiar hallway and took a right at the end, and made his way through the lobby to leave the building.

He was going to talk to Matsuda again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Aweeeee, come on Light!"

"Leave me alone."

"Fine. I'll just go get some more apples myself."

Finally. As much as I was grateful to not be alone in this castle, sometimes life with Ryuk was a little too much to bear.

I walked down the stone hallway. Everywhere in the castle was kept barely lit as I wanted it. There were no mirrors, either. I did not want to see myself. I knew what I had become and I knew the only way to go back to being who I was before.

Fall in love, and be loved in return.

Misa Amane should have thought about how impossible that would be when she turned me into this… thing. Not to mention, in order to keep from causing a panic, I have to stay in this castle. It was certainly big enough, and expensively decorated but hopelessly absent of people to 'fall in love' with.

Not that I understood the point of love. Chemicals reacting in a certain way to make you a fool. Pointless. At least she gave me Ryuk and Rem and the others. Not that I have any clue what they are, but they are strange enough to amuse me and Ryuk is just wicked enough to keep me interested in life.

Flinging my hand… _claw_ out in front of me, I shove open the door and stride into the Gray Room. Dropping into my favorite chair in front of the fire**,** I think about my visitor earlier. There wasn't any real reason to scare him, but I had been kind to him, there was no reason for him to steal from me.

Standing abruptly from my chair I left through the opposite door and entered my personal chambers. The Black Room. A fire was burning here, also. On top of the mantle lay the rose that the girl had given me a year ago. Still full and beautiful, it made me sick to look at it. Turning away, I walked toward the large window to see the storm.

In a flash of lightning, I caught my reflection. Thick golden fur with streaks of jet black and alabaster. Large black eyes set in a face that almost looks human. Eight feet of nothing that could pass for what I used to look like. Not the claws or shape of the joints. I sighed and turned away from the window, repulsed with myself. Then again, at least I didn't have horns or a tail.

Dejectedly, I walked to the fire and gently picked up the rose. Holding it in my too big hand, all I wanted to do was crush it. Fold my hand over it and make it look anything but perfect.

In another year, I would be stuck in this form… forever.

Replacing the rose, I walked back out into the hall. Perhaps it would be wise to turn the recent incident into as good a thing as it could be. Even if the old man came back alone, he would be more company than I had had in a while. Perhaps if I could convince the witch that I had made an attempt, she would lengthen my sentence until I found a better way of escaping it. If one of the boys came, I might be able to fool them into loving me. How I could do that as I looked now… was almost impossible to think about. Surely Amane wouldn't have given me two years if it were impossible…

"Rem," I spoke into the darkness. I had only to wait a few moments before the bizarre creature appeared before me.

"Yes, Light?" She asked. Of all the strange creatures in the castle, Rem was the kindest. For that reason, I always treated her with more respect than the others.

"We have a guest coming soon… we should prepare a room."

"May I suggest the closed room in the east wing?"

It was enough to almost make me laugh. "I suppose that one would be perfect."

"I'll get Gelus, Sidoh and Deridovely." She turned to go, but just before, she placed a bony hand on my shoulder. "It's not as useless as you think."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The apartment door slamming open woke me from where I was sleeping, crouched in my chair.

"L."

Turning, I saw Watari framed in the doorway. The old man was soaked through and looked frantic.

"Watari, what happened? Are you all right?" I jumped up from the chair and shuffled quickly over to him. He pushed my hands away and tried to regain some of his decorum.

"L," he nearly whispered. "I don't know how to start."

I turned away and led him into the room. "Start by sitting down. I'll get you a towel."

Before I could get too far**,** he grabbed my arm so that I would turn to him. He held out a small glass rose. It's intricate design was perfect in every way and no imperfections marred it in any way.

"The monster in the mountains is real, L."

That stopped me in my tracks and almost made me stand up straight. I looked into Watari's eyes and my blood started to run cold.

"He's real," he repeated, placing the glass rose in my hand. "And at the end of the week, I'm going back to him and he is going to kill me."

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A/N: Pretty please R&R! Many, many thanks to my awesomesauce beta Amy who beat me with a whip till this chapter was finished :D


	3. Tall Tales

A/N: *peeks out from behind tree* I'm soooooo sorry this took so long. The only excuse I have is school. This chapter is a little short also, but important. I'm rather proud of how it turned out. I can't say large gaps of time won't happen between updates but I'm going to try to keep it rolling on a tighter schedule. Again, very sorry!!

Disclaimer: See Prolouge

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_The blood fades from your skin_

_And you know you cannot escape_

_Turn and face it like a man_

_Discover your worth. How much can you take?_

I helped Watari into the sitting room and prepared a cup of tea for him. Surely the man was slightly delusional. Then again, what could make him think that he had to go away and die?

Watari grabbed my sleeve as he took the tea. "Where are Mello and Near? I need to talk to all of you."

"Near is upstairs and Mello went out with Matt. I'll call Mello and get Near." Patting his hand I left him as I went to the library to phone Mello. Given that I didn't want to try to explain what had happened to the blonde over the phone and possibly spend half an hour arguing with him, I decided on the "Fear-of-God" technique. Citing an emergency, I let his mind go to wherever it wanted.

Throwing my phone onto the nearest bookshelf I shuffled back into the hallway and up the stairs. Near was already on his way down.

"Was that Watari, L? Is he home?"

"Yes," I replied, calmly. It would do no good to overreact. "He wants to talk to us all. I've already called Mello. He's heading home now."

I waited for the young boy to move down the stairs but he didn't. Instead, his eyes drilled into mine.

"Something is wrong," Near stated. "What is it?"

I wanted to reassure him but couldn't because I knew it would be a lie. "I don't know."

Either Watari was having a psychotic breakdown or something truly horrifying had occurred in those woods.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

_The woods were getting more and more dense as he stumbled his way through. Being lost in the woods with no cell service was not turning out as bad as Watari had thought; it was worse. He knew that he probably should have stayed in the car, on the road. But with a flat tire and no one else in site, he knew he had to try something. He walked for a while along the road before he saw the lights in the manor house off in the woods._

_For about an hour he had been trying to reach those lights but the trees seemed to be against him. He knew what wood he was in. His adopted son, L, spent quite a bit of time gazing at them from his favorite window in their townhouse. He also knew the rumors about the woods. No one, however, had ever mentioned the house in the wood so he imagined that he was far enough away from whatever caused all the gossip._

_He carefully unwound the vine of briars that was holding his upper arm. As soon as he was free, he stepped quickly away and directly onto a narrow road. He looked to either side of him, mesmerized. He knew the beaten dirt path hadn't been there moments before. He also knew that he should be alarmed at the sudden appearance of it but something was keeping the fear at bay. Looking down the road, one way and then the other, he saw nothing of interest but that the second way turned off to the side and seemed the best choice to reach the house._

_When he finally rounded the bend, he didn't have to look hard to come to the end of his excursion. In front of him rose large black gates, intricately entwined with rose vines. As soon as his eyes landed on them, he felt an insatiable pull to get to them as soon as possible. Something in him wanted to turn away but the urgency of the call did not allow retreat._

_His hand met the handle of the gate. He released the latch and pushed, without much hope of it opening, but the iron slid smoothly away._

_As he entered, time seemed to change._

_There was a yard… then a garden… a stable… and then two large doors. Somewhere to his left, in a gathering of trees, something was watching him._

_*~*~*~*~*~*~*_

"Time was so strange there. I don't know how long I stayed. Probably not more than a day. It was so hard to tell…"

Watari's eyes were glassy and his mind was anywhere but with us, but I knew he wasn't lying. His tone was too sincere. Additionally, the Watari I knew did not make up stories like this.

I had many questions but couldn't decide with which to start. The events had started out believable enough. Then the road appeared. Knowing that he told us the truth did not help me to wrap my brain around what had happened to him.

"When I went in, a table was set with dinner. I nearly left the room to go in search of the owners, but the same pull that told me to walk through the gates bid me sit down and eat. I can remember that pull and the orders well enough but the corollary is fleeting in memory. I remember walking aimlessly through the halls but cannot recall the design of the rooms. I was bid enter a chamber and rest. That I did and that I do not remember. The next morning was the same. I sat down to eat and then knew I must go down to the car, for it was most assuredly fixed."

I could only stare in astonishment as Watari continued in his trance. Nothing seemed to make any logical sense. I vaguely wondered if the wood _had_ had a toxic spill of some sort but could not think of any toxin that would still be affecting him without harm to his health also. He turned wide, terrified eyes on me and it seemed he was finally back in the sitting room with Mello, Near and I. Mello and Near I had all but forgotten about and turned to see what they thought.

Mello's eyebrows were knitted with worry and for the first time it didn't appear that he was going to release a sarcastic comment. Flippant though he could be, he was not cruel and often infinitely insightful.

Near seemed both terrified and angry. He was leaning away from Watari, like the old man might spring onto him at any moment.

One thing was certain, I was not the only one who instinctually believed the story.

"It was when I was leaving that I found the rose." Watari's hand was raised, pointing at the tiny glass flower that had been in my hand since he had thrust it on me at his arrival. "I don't know why I took it. I was urged to… but not by the same presence as before. This was different, though I knew I should not steal it. There were so many glass figures and part of me wanted to believe that the house had long since been abandoned despite the obvious services they had done me. But I never would have taken it. Never have I ever done something like that. And when my hand touched it…"

I leaned in again. I knew now we were getting to the part of the story that truly terrified him.

"I touched it and it was soft…like it had come to life. The bright green glass still looked like glass, but felt slick and suple. The red rose petals were of the softest silk. The blue dew drops were really moist but no matter how you touched them, they did not move… and the black blood that would occasionally drip from it…"

I looked down at the rose. Yes, it was beautiful in its intricacy and something about it seemed to have a life of its own.

But it was only glass and there was no trace of black blood.

"I picked it up," Watari continued. "I thought to get a better look at it, but soon I was walking away with it still in my hand…" Watari started to shiver and his eyes darkened.

"And then…_He_ came."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"_That's how you repay me, old man?" The voice erupted behind Watari and he spun back, nearly flinging himself to the ground._

_He started up at the hulking figure that stood at least two heads above him. _

"_You steal from me?" The thing growled at him. "That is you idea of gratitude?"_

"_I'm sorry." Watari stumbled back as he tried to understand what he was looking at. His mind was as clearer than it had been since he came to the gate the day before. "I don't know what I was thinking! I'm sorry…"_

"_It's certainly not what I told you to do. I've been guiding you since I found you fumbling around in the woods. I took care of you, gave you shelter, fed you and you _steal_ from me!"_

_Watari was still trying to fight his way backward to escape but couldn't seem to gain any ground. "You? It was you?"_

"_Yes," it growled. "I can do a lot of things. Maybe you should have thought about the fact that, just maybe, the one who's telling you what to do can do other things. Things that are not so comforting."_

"_Please," Watari continued in a calmer voice. "I have sons at home. Three of them. They are waiting for me. Two of them are not yet old enough to truly watch after themselves and I would not thrust their care onto the oldest."_

"_Three sons and two are still young? You look like you could have grandchildren that old."_

_Watari nodded, understanding that whoever this Beast was, he was calming down a bit. "I adopted them. None of them are related but I've raised each of them since they were small children."_

_The Beast stared down at Watari. Something in the creature's eyes was sad, lonely and disturbingly human._

"_What are your son's names? And how old are they?"_

"_L is the oldest," he started. "He just turned twenty-two. Then Mello who is sixteen and Near is the youngest. He's only thirteen."_

"_The oldest… L. What is he like?"_

_A faint smile reached Watari's lips. "Very intelligent. Stubborn. Kind. Most people think he's very strange because of the way he acts and looks, though… He doesn't leave home often."_

_A gleam of something crossed the Beast's face again before disappearing. "Go home, old man, and send L to me."_

_Watari's eyes sharpened when he heard those words. "Why would I do that? If you are going to kill me, then kill me. Do not think I would trade L's life for my own."_

"_Fine. Go home, tell your sons what has happened. I promise you, if L comes, no one and nothing will harm him. If he refuses to come, you must return. If neither of you come, in a week, I will find you and I will kill all of you. Do you understand?"_

_Watari stared up into the face of the Beast. He was terrified of whatever this monster was but he knew he should not ask. Something inside him was very adamant about not approaching just _what_ he was. Now that he understood what was going to happen he was starting to shake. He could feel the dismissal coming so he only had to hold out for a few more minutes._

"_Then I will see you in a week." He reached out to set the rose on the fountain beside him._

"_No," the Beast whispered. "Take the rose. Show it to your sons. Show them what your absence brought about. Let them see how it glitters. Let them hold it, weigh it in their hands so they can know that _that rose_ is worth more than glances. Then they can hate the little glass rose you took because they know it was purchased by losing either you or L."_

* * *

A/N: There it is! Next chapter should be quite a bit longer as *dundundun* L and Light come face to hairy face!

Thank you so much to my awesome beta, Amy, who after all this waiting is still such an enthusiastic supporter! You're amazing, wild child!


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